He's worried about you
by theAdventurer0815
Summary: In this alternate version of The Hand Of Fear, ep.1, Rory has to stop a mysterious traveler from making a mistake he could regret for centuries to come; To run away from the fear of losing someone dear to you. [Sarah is the main subject of this story, but doesn't interact with anyone; Eleven makes an appearance in the epilogue only]
1. Chapter 1

_**He's worried about you**_

 _SUMMARY:  
{On this particular day at the hospital, Rory Williams gets to take care of an unlucky, traveling scientist and his best friend who both had been involved in a life-threatening accident at the quarry. Witnessing the distress of the mysterious traveler over an event that didn't happen, he might be the only one to prevent the stranger from making a mistake he would regret for centuries to come…_

 _This is an alternate version of The Hand Of Fear, episode 1, whereas the TARDIS materialized in 2012 instead of the 70's, and Rory´, who had already been traveling with the Eleventh Doctor by then, gets to take a look into his alien friend's past.}_

 _Also see my author's note at the bottom of the chapter!_

* * *

It seemed like a busy day at the hospital today. For sure it must have been a while since Rory felt being in such a rush. Although he couldn't really say why he felt this way; No mayor incidents had been reported and it wasn't like people came flooding in with serious injuries either – which, of course, was generally good. He didn't want people to get hurt.

However, there was one funny story Rory had just heard from a colleague who was working down at the emergency reception; Apparently, they had brought in a woman who had gotten herself buried under rocks during a detonation at the Blackpool quarry. The strange thing about this obviously was that, first of all, people don't usually go taking a hike in a quarry during day-to-day operations, but even stranger than that was that – according to Rory's friend – the woman had sustained no lethal or irreversible injuries.

 _'Must have been very lucky_ _not to get struck by flying debris.._ _.'_ , was what the young man thought to himself while he was on the way to see his next patient.

As it would turn out, she had been not be only one to make it out of the quarry with an immense amount of luck...

Now, Rory didn't knew much about the man he was about to meet. All which the chief surgeon had told him when they passed in the hallway was that someone else had come in, and that the man had also been involved in the quarry accident. Seeing how the other one had been brought in by ambulance in a hurry, it seemed like a good idea to run him through a full check-up as well, but the man kept refusing to admit that he might be hurt - which is why the chief surgeon thought that maybe Rory could give it a shot, try to talk some sense into the man. Obviously some people at the hospital thought that the male-nurse was rather good at that sort of thing.

„ _He's bruised, he's beaten – I'll bet my right kidney if he didn't crack at least one bone!"_ , that or something like it had been the words of the hospital's leading doctor about the patient.

As a caretaker, Rory wasn't officially allowed to diagnose anything, but he believed – as did some of his colleagues, apparently - that he was a good choice when it came to performing first aid. Most likely even more so ever since he have had to use it under the bizarre conditions the Doctor had put him through on their adventures…

As he opened the door to the examination room, Rory quickly found his patient; a man in his early forties, sitting in one of the chairs with his head resting in one hand, eyes closed and sunken in thought – or pain, maybe.

It was rather difficult to tell from one look.

But there was one thing about that man which Rory noted immediately and would go on to remember for a long time afterwards; His rather odd sense of fashion. The man's outfit was dominated by an extraordinarily long scarf which wrapped around his neck once and still fell to the floor. Wearing a thing like that seemed highly impractical and for some reason, the nurse had to think of the man stumbling through rubble and tripping over the scarf's ends over and over again.

And he even might have right been about that assumption. The stranger was covered in light-brown dust, small rips in his clothes from where he must have fallen and his arms, hands and face revealed a greater number of scratches and bruises. All together nothing too serious from the look of it, but more than enough to make you wonder what had happened to him.

„Hello."

Because the patient hadn't noticed him yet, Rory decided to let himself be heard when he stepped in and closed the door behind himself.

The stranger's head shot up almost immediately and before the nurse could have stopped him, he was on his feet. And he was rather tall, too. Rory had to look up a bit to meet his eye. The scarf however, was still long enough to brush the floor even when he was standing…

„Why, hello! It was about time, wasn't it?", he questioned Rory, his booming voice almost as overwhelming as his sudden onslaught of questions. „Are you going to tell me now where they've brought Miss Smith? She isn't in the emergency still, is she?"

„I, uh… Miss Smith?" Slightly confused, the younger man struggled for an answer, but the stranger was incredibly quick to further explain what it is he wanted to know about.

„Yes, Miss Smith. Sarah-Jane Smith. About this tall – dark hair – had an unpleasant encounter with a rockslide."

„Oh! Oh, yes." Of course, that was the woman who had been brought in by ambulance! Naturally, he would be worried about her if they had been involved in the same accident. Rory raised his hands in a gesture to try and calm the man in front of him. „She's out of the emergency ward and in no immediate danger. Actually, I think the doctor's with her just now."

The other one didn't calm down much. All he did was frown at Rory.

„Well, I'd feel much better if that _was_ the case..."

„Ah, yes...?" The nurse wondered about that oddly pronounced statement just a bit before stepping past the tall stranger and offering him to take a seat, again. „Anyway, about you… You've been involved in that encounter with the rockslide, too, haven't you?"

The man with the scarf let out a sigh.

„Yes, but look, I'm fine. Perfectly healthy. I'd very much prefer to see my companion now, if you don't mind."

Giving him a serious look, Rory tried to make him understand that Miss Smith was being taken care of now and that he would better think of his own health for a moment.

„Well, we can still check on her once we are done here. And - excuse me, Sir - but I refuse to believe that not one - but two people made it out of a rock detonation almost unharmed, and these cuts and bruises are telling a different story, anyway."

He nodded towards the man, who only then gave his arms a quick look, before turning back to Rory. „Oh, I've had much worse than this, believe me.", said the stranger with a smirk on his face and then took some steps closer to lean towards the nurse.

„Listen, good man, you don't happen to know a certain Harry Sullivan? He will most certainly vouch for my-"

It was obvious where this sentence was going, so even though Rory did not know a certain Harry Sullivan, he decided to cut him off mid-sentence.

„Alright, alright.", he tried to compromise, and to get some distance back between them at the same time, „I get it, you're feeling well. But I'm not asking much, and I promise it won't take long. Just… let me do my work and let me at least have a look at the superficial injuries. And, if you do start to get a funny feeling later, you can always come back for the full check-up, okay?"

At first, the stranger with the scarf just kept staring at Rory with this wide-eyed look. Maybe a bit puzzled at how he had actually dared to interrupt him just like that. But that stare was making the nurse feel uncomfortable so quickly, that he decided to add another „...Okay? just to break the silence.

„Okay, fine.", the other replied eventually, and, brushing the scarf aside, finally sat back down to the opposite of the table where Rory was standing.

 _'Stubborn fellow'_ , shot through his head as he also took a seat and sighed - but only mentally, so it wasn't impolite.

Rory pulled a first aid kit and some additional band-aids near and instructed the stranger to lay his arm onto the table. While he began to clean off the dust and tended to the worse kind of scratches, the nurse decided to do some small talk. Most people preferred to have their mind taken off their worries after all, he believed.

„So, then… what's your name?"

„Well, what's yours?", responded the stranger all too quickly.

„I'm Rory Pon-Williams! Rory Williams, yes, that's me.", he corrected himself, all the while wondering what had led him to making such a mistake. Maybe it was because the Doctor always called him and Amy _'The Ponds'_ , and well, even he would admit that the Pond side of their little family was the more… prominent one in their relationship.

The patient raised his eyebrows knowingly.

„Ah… Freshly married, proud husband, I presume?"

Rory couldn't help but smile. „Very much so, yes."

„What's she like? A nice girl?"

„Amy's just wonderful. Although I don't think she would describe herself as a _nice girl_ – she can be pretty rough if she feels like it. But, well, whoever gets it from her usually deserves it and..."

A little taken by surprise, Rory stopped when he suddenly noticed how easily his patient had taken the lead in this conversation and kept him from asking more questions.

„And what?"

„Very clever, Sir." Rory chuckled. "Actually, I wanted to hear from you what had happened in the quarry."

The stranger gave him a confused look. „Quarry? Which quarry?"

„The one you and your companion almost got buried in?"

Rory figured that he was just acting, trying to get him off of this conversation topic, but he wouldn't allow that to happen again. Not as easily, anyway...

„Oh, right. That one. You must excuse me, I've been to quite a few quarries already."

„Traveling much, hm?", wondered the nurse aloud. After all, the other did look a bit like the Bohemian type of person, the kind who could wander the world aimlessly...

„Yes, quite a lot!"

A big ear-to-ear grin appeared on the face of the man with the scarf, before he went on to explain. „You see, we've gotten ourselves lost. It was a case of bad luck to end up in a quarry just before the next detonation. But then again, really, this kind of thing happens a lot to us..."

He pondered a little bit before he corrected himself: „Actually, bad luck had probably little to do with it. It's more like this: We always end up where we should be, but we just never know where this is going to be beforehand, and why." The fact that the man was still smiling made it seem that he didn't mind his _'bad luck'_ very much.

Funny; Rory found that sounded somewhat familiar to how the Doctor, Amy and he would always end up in trouble together even if they just meant to take a holiday. But that was just him thinking. Of course, the chance that this man, too, had any connection to the Doctor was very slim.

Once he was finished patching up the cuts, Rory began to feel the man's arm for broken bones. Some of the bruises did look rather nasty, and even though his patient tried to keep a straight face, there was little doubt that the touch must have been painful to him. „Does this hurt?", he asked him while he was feeling the lower arm near the wrist and the man winced in pain, responding with a „NO!" so firm that there was no credibility to it…

„Insist on it all you want, but I will put a bandage around it and tell you to keep it still, anyway."

Before he had to hear a word against it, Rory was already applying the medical supplies in question.

„I wouldn't believe the _corpus ulnae_ to be broken; I was barely in reach of that rockslide, anyway.", complained the man and pulled one of his scarf's ends closer to wipe some of the remaining dust off his face.

„Not broken, but cracked or strained, very likely.", Rory responded quickly, before looking up and wondering about the medical term the other had used. „You're not a man of medicine, too, are you?"

There was again that big, crazy smile appearing on the strangers face, giving away just how much he enjoyed to keep his secrets. „Oh no, I'm not _A doctor_ , I'm just _THE-_ "

With a near perfect timing, one of Rory's colleagues tore the door open – no knock or anything to warn of the sudden intruder.

„The report on Miss Sarah-Jane Smith is finished, you can visit her now. She's at the west wing, room 254.", he announced to both Rory and the stranger before heading off again almost immediately.

Nurse Williams struggled to finish the bandaging of the wrist before his patient was up and about again, ready to leave the examination room - and now, with that kind of information, Rory knew there was very little he could do to stop him from it.

„Thank you very much for your concern, Mr. Williams, I'll be going then to see my companion." Just as expected, the stranger with the scarf was marching out the door before he had gotten any chance to hold him back. But still, Rory didn't intend to let him off the hook so easily.

„Wait! I'll be coming with you!", he shouted after him just as the door fell into its lock...

Rory stopped short in his pursuit, thinking that the man had already been off, but then the door opened again – just enough for the stranger to peek through once more.

„Come on, then!", he commanded – and Rory hurried to catch up.

* * *

 _I realized too late that with Rory being River's Dad and all that he would most likely know about regeneration, and that would make this entire set-up impossible. At the time I wrote this (my first English fanfiction, by the way) I liked the idea so much, however, that I accepted the risk of possibly getting facts about Rory and/or the Eleventh Doctor wrong. I knew some bits from having seen single episodes of season 5 and 6, and the beginning of season 7, and hoped that it would be sufficient._

 _The whole story basically foots on two thoughts I had when watching 'The Hand of Fear' for the first time. One was that the story could have been set in any decade, because they never gave the year they arrived in, UNIT was not involved and it didn't matter as much anyway. The seconds thought was that Sarah had probably never been in more danger, with her almost being crushed/buried alive, then possessed and being poisoned by radiation, too. It led me to believe that the Doctor had a good reason to let her go, because had he not, he could as well have ignored the "no-humans-on-Gallifrey" rule as it was done with Leela later._

 _Last, but not least: This story wasn't written to extend on the relationship of Four and Sarah in a romantic way, but if you already have a shipping in mind, it probably works for you, too._


	2. Chapter 2

That thing the man had said just before they got interrupted. He hadn't been trying to identify himself as _THE Doctor_ , had he? But that wasn't possible, was it? There was something oddly familiar about him that nagged on Rory the more time he spent talking to the man, but he knew the Doctor, and this guy looked nothing like him, not even if you took into consideration that his physical appearance was much older than the one Rory had in mind.

Fine, so maybe he thought that their behavioristic was kind of similar, but there was still a noticeable difference in pace about them. So in conclusion, he couldn't be the Doctor – no way – but what if he was still one of his lot, the Time Lords? It could be possible, no?

Now, Rory really had to know who this man was! There were more questions to be asked!

He had to hurry a little to keep up with the man's long strides and the determination with which he walked down the hospital corridors.

„If you're not a man of medicine, then how do you know such terms?"

„I read a lot. Used to work as an unpaid scientific advisor once, too."

The answer came without as much as a glance.

„So more of a scientist, huh...", pondered Rory. A mysterious traveler, scientist, who always gets himself into trouble to help others… how big are the chances? Given the assumption again that he could be the Doctor, then shouldn't he have recognized Rory? He would have identified himself straight away, that's for sure. No, no – it couldn't be. It made no sense. Maybe a little, alright, but not enough?

„What was that you wanted to say before, you know, when you said that _you're not a doctor, but_ …?"

„That was nothing. Nothing, really.", All set for his destination, the man only came to a halt once they had reached the door with the sign '254' next to it. While knocking politely, he gave Rory a short look and a smile.

„Listen, why don't you just call me… Oh, I don't know. Say, ' _Tom_ ' or something. I won't be staying long anyway!" The stranger with the scarf pressed down the door handle and took a step in, but then hesitated mid-way through the process of door-opening and looked back at the nurse yet again. „Does ' _Tom_ ' work for you? I think it could work for me."

When he finally did step in, Rory could have sworn that the man continued his babbling by quietly adding: „I think it sounds British enough..."

The room they walked into was a single-patient room, with one plain bed, and on it lay the woman who Mr. ' _Tom_ _'_ had wanted to see so eagerly. She was maybe mid or late twenty and fairly pretty with dark brown hair that flowed in soft curves and a face peaceful and friendly, that seemed to give away what a kind heart she must have. At least that was the impression which Rory was getting. He would have liked to hear and see what she was like – personality-wise – but unfortunately she was still out cold and unconscious, just like when they had brought her in.

The possible Time Lord – or well, _Tom_ , because supposedly that's what Rory should call him – walked over to the bedside, leaning over the sleeping young woman to get a good look at her.

"Oh, Sarah, my dear girl, won't you wake up soon?", he asked and, with great care, brushed a few loose strands of hair out of her face.

From where he was standing, Rory couldn't see his face, but just by the sound of his voice he could tell how much he was worrying about her. And while he was busy doing that, the nurse decided to take a look at the report the actual – well, the hospital's – doctor had left for staff like him to find. It was only then when he read her name on the paper that he had something like a deja-vu, as if he's read her name before somewhere else. _'Sarah-Jane Smith…'_ he wondered if maybe he'd seen another medical report of hers, or if she had been to this very hospital before. The paperwork department would probably need a little more detail on her than just her name to be able to match older records of her to the new one. If they could have matched her already, he would have expected the report to state other personal information of hers, such as residence or birth year. But then again, Sarah was not able to speak for herself, and Mr. Tom here most likely wouldn't tell even if he knew, so where would they get the information from?

Rory decided to stash that thought away for now and focus on the situation at hand, before he would find himself lost wondering about it.

"Did they find out why she's still unconscious? I had hoped it's just a concussion, or the shock, perhaps – but she has been out for much longer than usual now..."

As Rory looked up from the record, he saw Tom pulling a chair closer so he could sit down next to his knocked out friend. "Well, uhm..." The nurse had to double check because he couldn't find anything in the record that would answer his question "It doesn't say anything about it. Must be like you said then… I suppose being buried alive can leave quite an impression on the mind."

Thinking twice about Tom's words, Rory paused and furrowed his brows.

"What do you mean, _longer than usual_? How often does that happen?"

"Sarah can be quite foolish, running after me into the most terrible dangers – and even if tell her not to, the next time I turn around there she is back again. Like that, not even I can keep her from getting knocked over her head every once in a while… Actually... it happens to me too, you know? Getting captured and knocked out and all that. Somehow, we always made it out in one piece…" While he spoke, the man with the scarf barely gave Rory a glance. He was much too focused watching over Sarah-Jane, even though obviously she wasn't going anywhere anytime soon.

And Rory, well, he didn't know for sure what to answer to this. It sounded almost a bit as if the man had wanted to blame his friend for her misfortune, but that was not how things seemed in Rory's eyes. If Tom was anything like the Doctor, then the reason why his companion had ever gotten into any kind of danger into the first place… was him. Well more or less, sure, because it must have been Sarah's choice, too.

But how would the man know when he was taking it too far? When they were heading for the kind of danger only one of them would make it out of? Did he have the same capabilities as the Doctor when it came to saving lives at the last second?

Rory suddenly found that he had never pondered about these things like he did now. For some reason, the thought that he or – even worse, Amy – might end up in more trouble than they could handle and that it would be the Doctor's fault, had never occurred to him before.

Now it seemed all too real. He blinked confused by his own thoughts. No, he didn't really want to blame the Doctor for anything. He was much too friendly a fellow to do so… but then again, if it did come to the worst… could friendship really save him from a widower's wrath?

The silence quickly began to drag on, and even though Rory felt that his thoughts might be unfitting to be spoken in this situation, he decided to say something anyway.

"It's not her fault.", was everything he uttered, eventually.

"No, it's not.", Tom agreed – his voice sounding distant and quiet, but then quickly rose to normal volume when he hastily continued;

"What else have the doctors found? What does the report say, if it is not about her state of conscience?"

Rory hesitated a moment, wondering if he should say something about that short reply the possible Time Lord had almost choked on. He obviously was aware of his part in it, and didn't feel too well about it either. _'No need to pour salt into the wound'_ , was what Rory thought – although he might get back at it if a discussion would come up – and then decided for now to just tell Tom what he had asked about.

"Well, other than that she is unharmed. The only curious thing that they have found are muscle contractions in the left lower arm and hand. They gave her an anti-tetanus injection, just to be sure, although: _The most likely cause is that her muscle memory remembers still holding on to the object she was brought in with. The object is now in custody of the pathology section._ "

Rory raised his eyebrows at the last sentence. "Brought into pathology… I wonder what that was? If it happened to be part of a body, I wouldn't be surprised that her mind decided to shut down for a while. The shock was simply too much."

When he looked up from the paper to check on Tom for a reaction to what he had just read, the man with the scarf was just done verifying the state of Sarah's cramped left arm and fist for himself. "A little strange to find a body part in a quarry, isn't it?", he wondered aloud.

"Maybe not so much. I guess… if you wanted to get rid of a body, putting it among a detonation wouldn't be the worst idea…", suggested Rory. "It does sound macabre, though."

For the first time in a while, the other man got up and looked over to him. "Crime usually is.", Tom said with a serious tone, and an even more serious face.

"Where is the pathology? If you could keep an eye on Sarah, I would like to see the object for myself."

Rory shook his head and tried to give him an apologetic expression. "No luck, Sir.", he replied, "No one will be available in the pathology section before 11:30 or so."

With a more than audible sigh of annoyance, Tom ran both his hands through his curly hair and stood restless, turning on the spot not knowing whether to leave or to stay.

"How long's that?" he demanded to know, but answered his own question immediately. "Two hours? Two more hours." He literally slumped back into the chair. In a motion of uneasiness, he moved his fingers over the temples, then went on to rest his head in both hands. Somehow, he looked… desperate. No, just a little… too worried. Like he tried to get rid of a thought and couldn't.

"I'm sorry." Rory's attempt to ease his mood did very little.

The only kind of response he got was a grumpy, muffled "Don't be."

As silence fell around them again, Rory thought back of the deja-vu which he had before. It shouldn't take too long to see if another Sarah-Jane Smith had been entered into the system. The only reason that kept him from leaving was the kind of mood Tom was in. From his experience Rory knew that it would do him well to talk about the things that were worrying him, but then again, the man did not seem like the type that enjoyed to simply talk about the things on his mind. Maybe he wanted to figure this out by himself. And maybe he should - after all, who was he to judge a stranger?

Rory thought intensively about it for a while, but even if he would talk to him, he just couldn't think of a way to start the conversation. So eventually, he decided that he could leave him to himself for a moment, because he would be back soon anyway.

"I'll have to go check the patient's medical history. That is, if there is any. So uh… would you mind if I stepped out for a while...?", The least he could do was ask, so to not leave the other hanging there if his presence was actually needed.

Tom actually looked at him this time, but also just briefly. He barely even lifted his head. Probably just the curiosity that had lead him to do anything, really.

"Hm, don't let me detain you from doing what you have to...", he replied in the same mumbled tone as before.

With an affirmative nod, Rory hurried out. But even as he was walking down the corridor, a certain feeling of urgency stuck with him. As if – well, he couldn't say for sure – but it was as if he had the feeling that Tom might come to the wrong kind of conclusion just sitting there and thinking about his involvement in this. That he might do something rash, something he might regret. Now, he wouldn't hurt Sarah, that was obvious. He cared way too much about her, so she would be in good hands while Rory was out. But then what was it that the young man feared? And why did it concern him so much? Still, he knew almost nothing about these two, did he? The feeling of familiarity…. First him, then Sarah's name on the paper. Why?

He had to know.


	3. Chapter 3

So, Rory Williams went down to the records to fight the system…

Quite literally - as long as that antique piece of hardware they called ' _computer'_ still counted as a ' _system_ ' of its own. After a little while however, Rory was rewarded for his patience with the old machine. In the end he was always glad that the records were digitalized, despite the trouble he had with it.

It turned out that he had been right about that deja-vu of his! There really existed a medical history on a woman by the name of Sarah-Jane Smith. Without looking much further into it, Rory sent the document to the printer so he would be able to take it back with him. Maybe talk with Tom about it, if anything in the record might give a clue to her current condition...

When the nurse made it back to the patient's room he found the young woman and her older friend in the exact same place as before. If anything, maybe Tom seemed a little more calm, although his watchful eye was still resting on Sarah. Again, he barely turned to see who had entered the scene as the door fell back into its lock after Rory had stepped in.

There was no real point in starting a conversation now, so the nurse just took the other chair next to the table near the foot of the patient's bed, sat down and began to read. There were three entries on Sarah-Jane Smith. The first time she had been to the hospital had been because of some larger cuts which had to be treated with stitches, the second time was because of suspected food poisoning.

But the third time was the one that got Rory's mind back to racing. Sarah-Jane had been in for surgery, or more precisely: To have a bad hip joint replaced.

She was a little young to have a bad hip, wasn't she? There was nothing in the record which would have stated that she had been born with a faulty joint or that it was the result of a more serious injury. At least, there was nothing on the matter which Rory would have found right away. These records were a little more detailed then he needed them to be at the moment, and it took a while to skim for the bits of information he was interested in. Especially so because he had no idea what he really was looking for.

Too much information… Rory looked up for a bit, and his look fell again on the unmoving figure of the possible Time Lord, just sitting there all lost in thought. He couldn't help but keep wondering – no, worrying - what was going on in the man's head.

"She will be alright, you'll see.", Rory assured him, got up and took his chair a little closer to the bed so that at least he could look at Tom's face from an angle.

The man with the scarf and curly hair didn't react at all this time. His gaze wasn't even that fixed on Sarah anymore. Much rather, it seemed that he was just staring into an empty space, somewhere off in the distance.

"I could imagine that she might like to take a holiday after an experience like that. Just to pass some time somewhere nice and relaxing..." Rory had no idea what he was talking about and he knew that very well. He had to say something, though. Just anything that would maybe bring the man back into reality.

"Although perhaps she isn't the kind of person who can enjoy uneventful trips. My Amy sure doesn't. She always has to do something, never gets tired." To think of Amy made Rory's heart and mind feel lighter, but it was no feeling that he could convey to anyone else.

Definitely not to Tom, who didn't move and didn't even blink. He might not even have heard his words. As a conversation partner, he was currently about as responsive as a brick wall…

"So, what's Sarah like when she's awake?"

Rory asked more directly now, but it was no use.

It still didn't seem like he would get a response, so he decided to get up and tap the man's shoulder.

"Tom? What's she like, hm?"

Finally, the other blinked and turned his head, looked around a bit, hastily and confused. He most certainly hadn't been listening before. "Eh? What's who like?", he wanted to know.

"Sarah-Jane."

"Aw, she's just..." Tom paused because he was looking down at his hands. He had kept them folded all the time while he had been sitting still, only to discover now that he had been tightly holding onto a piece of his scarf. "She's just my best friend.", he said with a sigh between his words.

Then, and quite suddenly, too, he stood up and walked around Rory to the door, but stopped just as he was about to place his hand on the handle.

"I'm sorry, I really am. I, uhm… I need a change of air." While Tom spoke, he was clearly avoiding eye contact. But even so Rory thought to see the notion of a smile on his face when he added:

"Keep watch while she's defenseless, will you?"

"Sure..."

The nurse stood a little puzzled, because he would have done that anyway, really.

And then Tom left the room, carefully pulling the door close behind him as if he didn't want to make too much noise. So there was Rory, left to look at the unconscious Sarah-Jane. She seemed so calm. Hopefully that sleep she was getting would make her feel a lot better when she would finally come to. In any case, there wasn't much that Rory could do for her at the moment. And as for Tom, he didn't want to talk much, okay, but maybe - at the very least - he would have cleared his thoughts and might be able to listen when he was back.

"You know, your friend cares a lot about you even if he doesn't say it...", Rory said to the young woman in a whisper while he went to pick his print-out back up.

Before, when he had been skimming through the patient's history, he hadn't paid any thought to the front page with the personal details, but now it was the first thing his eye fell on when he lifted the paper off the table.

May 1951…

1951…

That was her birth year!

"Wait what?" Even more confused now than before he looked back up at Sarah's face. There was absolutely no way this woman could be past 30! Did he get the wrong record? Were there two Sarah-Jane Smiths?

But just as was he wanted to further contemplate this theory, a realization struck him like lightning.

Hadn't he seen the older Sarah-Jane Smith one of the times she had been to the hospital? Had she not looked just like the unconscious woman with a few decades added? Wasn't it perfectly possible that this patient here was a time traveler, brought into the middle of a quarry during a detonation because of an unfortunate mislanding of the TARDIS?

All sorts of thoughts were suddenly flooding Rory's mind, and out of the waves crashing together, one conclusion surfaced above all others; Tom wasn't coming back. He had most likely been talking about the consistency of the earth atmosphere when he said that he needed a change of air!

"Oh no-" Rory gasped, but hesitated only a second longer before finally bursting into a sprint out of the room. He had to get after him before he could reach his TARDIS - or well, whatever his space craft was!

"Tall guy – long scarf – where?" Grabbing the first colleague he ran into by the shoulders, Rory found out quickly that the possible-Doctor-Time-Lord-Tom was on his way to the lobby, which thankfully suggested that he hadn't parked in the hospital.

Rushing along corridors and jumping down a flight of stairs in a manner almost too hazardously for what Rory was usually like, he finally caught a glimpse of the multi-colored scarf vanishing around the next corner.

"Tom, wait! You're doing a mistake!" Rory called after him, but of course that alone didn't get the man to turn back.

Running after him, the nurse made it into the lobby and just in time to see the other steering towards the front entrance. Both hands in his pants' pockets and his head hung low, the man was heading out any second.

" **TOM!"** , shouted Rory now louder than before, across the whole lobby and everyone waiting in it – it didn't matter. A lot of people raised their head to see what the commotion was about, but the possible Time Lord didn't even glance back. _'_ _Of course he_ _would_ _n't_ _'_ , Rory figured. It was a makeshift name that he was shouting after him, not the one the man had chosen for himself. Oh, it was a bit of a chance to take, really, and the nurse took a heavy breath, before calling again. Not louder, but more firm;

" **DOCTOR!"**

The man stood still immediately, then turned around slowly. A wide-eyed, confused expression on his face with which he was now looking back at Rory. Finally.

Surely, it was not surprising to hear someone call for a doctor in a hospital environment, but it must have been the way, the distinctiveness, with which the nurse had called out, that had given a special meaning to the word. A meaning both of them had understood without further explanation...

Not thinking twice, Rory took the chance which he had been given to catch up.

"Doctor, if you leave now, you're going to regret this for a long time to come…!"

"Rory, what do you know…?" The man with the scarf stood there in bewilderment, but caught himself more quickly than the nurse had hoped. "Actually, no! Never mind that! If our timelines are crossing right now, the less we know, the better." And with just that, he turned back to the exit again and was about to walk out anyway.

"Doctor!", Rory pleaded. "If she really is your best friend, don't you think she deserves better than to wake up and find you gone?" This time, he wouldn't let him walk out again. Before the possible-Doctor was out the door, Rory managed to get a hold on one of the scarf's ends.

That got the other one's attention very fast now. He spun around and yanked his piece of clothing out of Rory's hands so suddenly that the nurse had to suppress the reflex to jump back frightened. "That's _Tom_ to you. At least until we are properly introduced!" Luckily, the anger in the man's voice faded just as fast as it had come.

"Besides...", Tom continued more quietly now, "I really hate good-byes… and very much prefer the vanishing act..." The way he said it and furrowed his brows, he seemed to be somewhere between regret and worry already.

"But this is not the time for it, Doc –", Rolling his eyes, Rory corrected himself immediately, "I mean, _'Tom'_ – Literally, it's 2012! Judging by Sarah's age, you must have been aiming for the 70's or 80's?"

Tom opened his mouth to reply something, but then closed it again as he thought twice and obviously settled for something else to say. "2012 is a terrible year!" was his conclusion. His gaze was going above and beyond Rory, from one point of the room to another while he was putting the pieces together. "I have to bring her back first...", he added whispering, but not silent enough for Rory not to hear it.

He saw the man shut his eyes tightly for a few seconds and thought that he was probably hoping for his troubles to be just a nightmare or something like it. But that wasn't the case and when Tom looked back into Rory's face, he had made up his mind once more – although there was no telling if he might go back on the decision.

"Right. But not in her current state.", he admitted and pushed the nurse by the shoulder aside to get past him back into the hospital. "Let's get back to Sarah for the moment. Come on!" Even though he waved for Rory to follow him, he didn't wait up.


	4. Chapter 4

However, this time they went through the hospital hallways, it was different. The possible-Doctor's confident strides began to slow down and sooner than Rory had excepted he could have lead the way easily if hadn't been for the man's aura of authority holding him back.

"Tom, I know there's something bothering you and I think it's best if you told me about...", the nurse tried as he was now walking at the other's side instead of always trailing after him.

"I really just want to help, by any means possible."

The older man slowed down even more and stopped eventually in the corridor, not too far from Sarah's room. "What's bothering me is that my mind isn't working properly.", he said, sighing, then turned to face Rory. "So yes, you're right; I might be in need of help, but I'm not so sure I can get it from you; The last thing I need right now is for time to shift or turn back on itself because of something said or done that I shouldn't know of right now."

Wondering whether Rory should tell the man that he would go on to invite himself to his own death, only to have time collapse, and then cheat on what he had called a fixed point in time, the nurse figured that it was too much of a spoiler to confront him with.

"Actually, I'm still not entirely certain that you are who I was thinking of...", Rory replied instead. Yes, he was very much suspecting the stranger to be the Doctor. His assumptions being footed on parts of his personality and extensive knowledge of things humans didn't usually talk about. Not to mention that the man had almost called himself by the title, and definitely reacted to it when called. But still there was the thing about his physical appearance which Rory didn't understand. He would have asked, but it was highly unlikely that he would get a straight answer from him.

"Great! Keep that uncertainty in mind, then."

Yes, the possible-Doctor just wanted Rory to keep believing that they didn't know each other at all. Tom took another step towards the door of patient room 254, but stood still again almost immediately. Apparently, the nurse wasn't the only one with uncertainty on his mind...

"Alright, then. I won't say a word about what I know.", Rory reassured him. "But you can speak freely, still."

With a troubled and tired expression the older one re-established eye contact with him. "The problem is that… Ah, how do I put it...?", he paused and sighed, and let the pause drag on a while longer before eventually continuing to speak.

"I believe that Sarah and I are stuck in a vicious circle of some kind."

His gaze was now full of concern for the young woman and his eyes didn't stray once from Rory while he went on to explain.

"She's been traveling with me for over three years now. She's been frightened and threatened and running for her life and fearing for other's over and over again with barely as much as a break in between." He shook his head, and slightly lowered his view in what seemed like a feeling of guilt. "She's asked me to bring her home already, and I tried to – or so I said – but in the end we've always kept skipping on the opportunities to part ways."

Finally, Tom had started to talk about what needed to be heard by, really, just anyone who was willing to listen and wanted to help. He examined Rory's face for a bit, possibly wondering if the nurse was criticizing him for not letting go as he should have.

"Oh, I'm not judging you...", he commented quickly, "There could have been a lot of reasons why you didn't."

"Obviously, neither of us really wanted to go, despite the hardships we've faced." At first, he avoided to look at Rory's face, but when he began to speak about his companion, not only did he pick the eye contact back up, but there was also a light smile appearing on his face while he praised, no – admired – her virtues.

"Sarah's… She's so full of concern. And she catches on so quickly. She even finishes my sentences sometimes, it's impressive! Have you ever seen a human that could be frightened and brave at the same time? Well she can. And now she's become like me, doesn't want to stop traveling and helping and I've grown to enjoy having her around more than anyone so far..."

But then the smile faded and anger appear instead. Tom lifted a fist and knocked himself lightly on the forehead as if to punish himself for an act of stupidity.

"The worst thing of all is that with 750 you're supposed to know better than to just keep going until the bitter end!"

Rory had been right with his very first assumption. Yes, he was blaming himself for all of this, wasn't he? Now how could he make it better for him? First of all, the nurse had to break this line of thought, get the possible Time Lord to think more clearly again.

"But if that's what she wants and if you can keep her safe from harm, then why not? Why not just keep going?"

"Because of accidents like today's." Tom responded with a very sincere tone in his voice. "When I saw the jacket she had been holding for me, sticking out of that pile of debris, I thought of her having been crushed underneath, and I felt a shock like…" Instead of finishing that sentence, he just gasped for air, then took a deep breath and shook his head while discarding the image in his mind.

"I thought that was it. One stupid little accident, and all was over."

"You thought she was dead...", Rory concluded. _'You were scared. To think that the Doctor could be scared of anything…_ _but_ _he never_ _did lose_ _a companion_ _by death_ _,_ _or_ _did he...?'_ Such a strange thought, even for one of the Doctor's latest companions. No wonder the Time Lord couldn't think straight. He wasn't used to being frightened like that… It just made Rory feel even more sorry for him than he already was.

"Yes. Yes, I did!" The confession came fast and clear. His tone was a strange, but definitive mix of anger and sadness now. "But you know what? It doesn't matter – because whatever I do, if she just keeps being with me, I'm bound to see her die anyway, whether it will be my fault or not. I will outlive her, that's a fact."

"Being outlived is better than to be killed, anyway. In the end, it's just one of different ways a journey can end… isn't it?" Death occurred naturally, and when it did it wasn't necessarily the worst thing to happen to the person it happened to, although it was almost always a though situation for family and friends. One thing that you could learn at a hospital...

Rory wondered how he would react if he told him that now, in 2012, Sarah would be past 60 years old, and that human barely ever made it to a full hundred. Then again, he was probably just too painfully aware of that.

The other gave him a displeased look. "Still a grim one that I'd rather not see. Either way, I don't like to worry like this, it clouds my mind and leads me to doing the worst kind of mistakes." He allowed the thought to settle before he continued.

"And she's just the same, you know? She's running after me because she worries that I won't make it without her… Silly little thing; Of course I can manage by myself."

Despite his monologuing, he didn't continue much further and Rory tried hard to think of something to say, so in the meantime silence began to settle between them. It wasn't easy arguing with him. Obviously, that's just what arguing with the Doctor would be like. How did you contradict the beliefs in the mind of someone hundreds or thousands of years older than you? But this man, Doctor or not, he wanted to be contradicted - No, for the sake of his state of mind he had to be.

"So, if you were running away from her… would that really fix the issue?"

"Assuming this was, say, 1979, yes. She could go back to the life she's had before me, wiser with the knowledge gained on her travels, and continue to help the people of Earth like the curious and brave girl she is.", argued Tom, who stood up a little straighter, staring down onto Rory as if he had to insist that his intention was the right one.

"And forever stay mad at you for ditching her like that, too." It was fairly easy to produce a counter-argument like that. Rory could see the Time Lord frowning about it before he had even finished the sentence. "What's the hurt in telling her good-bye? If you and her share thoughts like you said you do, she will understand." That should be obvious, but it was usually the obvious thing which the Doctor overlooked, wasn't it?

His conversation partner didn't say anything, but kept waiting for Rory to explain further. He seemed very much interested in whatever that would be, so the nurse tried his best to think of something.

"Look, she's made it out alive and well. There's no need to worry about her well-being for now. And if anything, this is just the beginning of a new adventure like it always is, right?" Rory clearly was referring back to how he had told him that they always ended up in the right place, except they never knew why. And before they could continue lives on their own, whatever it was this time most likely had to be settled first anyway.

"Look, you don't have to part ways just now. Just when the next opportunity arises… don't pass it up. Take it. Say your good-byes and then… I don't know. Visit her sometime, I guess. Girls like the occasional visit, to rest assured that they aren't forgotten. If she's anything like Amy... she will wait when you're gone, you know?" he suggested and couldn't help but think of how Amy had accused the Doctor of weaning them off of him. That was probably a good way to do it. And now Rory was wondering if the Doctor was doing that because of what he had suggested right now and if he was suggesting it because… Ouch!

Was that the kind of paradox Tom didn't want to happen?

"You're right, Rory. She's a clever girl, she will understand. And you know what else?"

Tom turned to the nurse with a smile forming on his face again and he stared at him with a sudden look of enlightenment, if not even excitement. "We weren't just lucky not to get hurt. We were spared! That object she pulled out of the rocks must have had something to do with it! It used Sarah to get out of the quarry!"

So typical, yet still puzzling how the possible-Doctor just brushed past what Rory had just said and seemingly focused on something else instead. But his mood had lifted a lot now, and at least for that the nurse was thankful. For all he knew, Tom had listened to his advice after all and just didn't want to admit to any more than he already had.

"So, uh, when you make it to 1979..." Rory tried to get a straight answer from him, anyway.

"Ssh! Listen! Listen!", the man with the scarf interrupted him rudely, "I'm going to find someone to let me into the pathology right now. Someone like I shouldn't need the authorities to figure out what it was that she pulled out of the rocks! Now, in the meantime, I want you to look after Sarah. But don't let yourself be seen when she comes to – in case she's visiting this hospital later in her life again."

The nurse blinked at him confused. Yeah... there was no way of getting something out of him if he didn't want to tell… "So, uh, what do I do then when she comes to?"

Tom shrugged and grinned wide now.

"Simple; you come and tell me as fast as you can!"

"Alright, I will."

"Good man. I'll be looking forward to travel with you in the far future!"

While Rory still stood there trying to catch up with the man's new ideas, the _'almost-certainly-a-Time-Lord'_ patted his shoulder like a comrade and gave him a trustful smile before he rushed off.

Rory would never fully understand them, he thought. Although there was still a lingering uncertainty to which category the man belonged. Doctor(s), Time Lords, aliens…

Still, now he was left again to watch over Sarah-Jane. When the nurse stepped back into the room, he took a deep breath, somewhat relieved that Tom had left him with a brighter outlook on his future.

To his surprise however, a pair of eyes was staring back at him when he lifted his head and meant to look at the patient.

"Oh, Miss Smith! Feeling better already?"

The woman wasn't simply awake. She stood next to the bed, and she had even traded the hospital gown for her own clothes already; A white and red striped overall that lacked any common sense of fashion, but looked almost adorable on her, anyway.

However, there was something very, very odd about her other than her clothes...

The look on her face.

She wasn't smiling and her eyes were fixed straight ahead as if she was still in a state of shock or trance.

Rory wanted to say something else, ask her about it, but what happened next was that the young woman rose the hand she had held cramped before to his face. Just for a brief moment Rory caught sight of a ring with a big, blue crystal embedded in it, before he was struck by a blinding light and collapsed to the floor.

He had been out instantly. Only a full hour later would he come around and by then, neither Sarah nor Tom were to be found anywhere.

Leaving him wondering about what happened for a long time to come, this concluded Rory's encounter with the two mysterious travelers…


	5. Epilogue

Many months later…

The well-known whooshing sound of the TARDIS marked a return of the Doctor in the life of the Ponds, and before they were given the time to fully realize it, the young, fast-talking Gallifreyan had Amy and Rory back on another daring adventure through time and space.

After the chaos was resolved in good time – that is, just before everything would have turned to the worst – Rory found some moments to breathe calmly while they were on their way back to Earth. Standing next to the Doctor while he was fixing a part of the TARDIS' console, he suddenly thought back to what happened at that day in the hospital. Seeing how he was now the Doctor's father-in-law, he doubted that the good man would refuse to answer the questions Tom had avoided again and again during their talk back then.

"Say, Doctor, did you know a Sarah-Jane Smith?", he started the conversation rather carefully.

"Sarah-Jane Smith?", the Doctor echoed. He seemed so busy that Rory feared he would have to fight for his attention. Again.

"Yes, Sarah-Jane Smith.", his human companion repeated. "What became of her?"

"The same thing that became of everyone that went with me: We travelled together, we stopped travelling together. She went her way, I went mine. I met and travelled with new people, like Amy and you." The Doctor shot him a quick smile when he mentioned their names.

But Rory wasn't satisfied by this answer in any way. To him, it was just months ago, and it had seemed like the man who – well, now it was pretty obvious that he somehow must've been the past Doctor; And it had seemed like the Doctor had cared so much about Sarah-Jane, enough to be frightened out of his mind by the possibility of her death.

But if things would have remained like that, why had he never spoken about her?

Why was he still trying to avoid the topic?

Did something happen between them, or worse, did he forget about her?

"Why did you never tell me that you've met me before? And how come that now you're looking younger than back then?", Rory spilt some of the questions that had been bothering him ever since.

While still fiddling with a large piece of circuitry and a whole bunch of wires, the Doctor went on to try and explain himself to his friend. "I had to wait until our timelines were moving into the same direction. And besides, from my point of view that was a brief encounter which happened almost 500 years ago. The memory's getting a little fuzzy on the details when you've lived as long as I have, my good Rory, so I wasn't even entirely sure that it really was you. And also, the thing with the physical appearance is called _regeneration_ ; It's a Time Lord's way of cheating death, you might say."

The first thing that came to Rory's mind was how the Doctor's and River's timelines did nothing but cross and that was never an issue, but just as he wanted to bring that up, the Doctor was much quicker on changing the subject.

"Would you mind helping me out, Rory?" The Time Lord searched through his pockets, but didn't seem to find what he was looking for. "I seem to have misplaced my sonic. Probably left it in the study. Go and fetch it for me, will you?"

Rory hesitated. He didn't like walking deeper into the TARDIS. It was too easy to get lost and the Doctor always had so much curious stuff lying about, he never knew if he was looking at something he shouldn't even know about. "Oh, uhm, I could hold this circuitry for you while you get it yourself… just so, you know, I don't get lost."

The Doctor gave him a stern look. "There is enough electricity flowing through this circuitry to kill all life in Loch Ness, including the Skarasen in it. If this wire slips, the electricity might flow through you, so if you would like to hold this in place while I..." He intentionally spoke a little slower, so he was expecting to be interrupted by Rory.

"I go fetch the sonic."

"Good man, Rory. You're a good man!", the Doctor shouted after him as Amy's husband stepped through the internal door of the TARDIS.

Lucky for Rory, it appeared the TARDIS was in a good mood. Because even though he had no idea where he had to turn to find the study, the first door that opened up to him turned out to be the right place. Better even, the young man found the sonic screwdriver lying right there, on the table at the other end of the room.

When he stepped closer to pick it up, his eyes fell onto some of the other things that lay scattered around the wooden desk. He noticed an old flute and a voice recorder, and then there was a cricket bat leaning on the side of the table as well as an umbrella with a question mark shaped handle.

Rory didn't think much about it, like he always knew; the Doctor collected many things. A lot of which probably looked harmless, but were most likely dangerous in one way or another.

But it wasn't until he turned around that he discovered the clothes hanger near the door and Rory's eyes grew wide.

It was old and battered, colors faded, patched up in many places and loose threads were sticking out here and there. But here it was, hung up in plain sight where it was a constant reminder of past times, a valuable item of memorabilia, and proof that its owner never forgot:

The oversized, multi-colored scarf.

And attached to it with a needle was a photograph of the late Sarah-Jane Smith, smiling.


End file.
